Introduction: We assessed the influence of education as a proxy of cognitive reserve and age on the dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) metabolic pattern.
Methods: Brain 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and clinical/demographic information were available in 169 probable DLB patients included in the European DLB-consortium database. Principal component analysis identified brain regions relevant to local data variance. A linear regression model was applied to generate age- and education-sensitive maps corrected for Mini-Mental State Examination score, sex (and either education or age).
Results: Age negatively covaried with metabolism in bilateral middle and superior frontal cortex, anterior and posterior cingulate, reducing the expression of the DLB-typical cingulate island sign (CIS). Education negatively covaried with metabolism in the left inferior parietal cortex and precuneus (making the CIS more prominent).
Discussion: These findings point out the importance of tailoring interpretation of DLB biomarkers considering the concomitant effect of individual, non-disease-related variables such as age and cognitive reserve.
Keywords: biomarkers; cognitive reserve; dementia with Lewy bodies; fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography.
© 2021 the Alzheimer's Association.